News feminist philosophers can use

Day: September 28, 2008

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

So far, the scheme seems to be getting a strong response. As of Friday, Planned Parenthood had taken in $802,678 in donations from 31,313 people, said a spokesman for the organization, Tait Sye. More than two-thirds of the individuals are first-time donors to Planned Parenthood, Mr. Sye said, and money came in from all 50 states.

So, congratulations to all of you who have helped make this such a success!

Symposia in Gender, Race and Philosophy has a new symposium up, on Anne Eaton’s “A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminism”, and I urge you to check it out. (You have to register, but that’s easy.) Eaton’s paper is an exceptionally careful exploration of what a sensible anti-porn feminism should look like: how such a view should define ‘pornography’, what conception of causation it should use, what sorts of causal claims it should make/explore, what sorts of rigorous testing would be needed to actually establish these claims, and what sorts of remedies it should advocate (not necessarily legal ones). It’s well worth reading even for feminists who are not anti-pornography, partly because it provides a new and interesting foil, but mostly because it raises so many fascinating and important methodological points. (And, in fact, Eaton’s anti-pornography feminism might not be characterised as anti-pornography by everyone.) It’s followed by an excellent series of commentaries by Patrick Hopkins, Rae Langton, Ishani Maitra and Laurie Shrage; and a reply by Eaton with lots of great original material in it. Go check it out! (It’s the Spring (No.2) Symposium.